{"id":5790,"date":"2023-01-25T20:34:21","date_gmt":"2023-01-26T01:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/?p=5790"},"modified":"2023-04-21T11:08:41","modified_gmt":"2023-04-21T15:08:41","slug":"reconsidering-performance-art-history-tradition-and-contemporaneity-at-chale-wote-in-ga-mashie-accra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sequitur\/2023\/01\/25\/reconsidering-performance-art-history-tradition-and-contemporaneity-at-chale-wote-in-ga-mashie-accra\/","title":{"rendered":"Reconsidering Performance Art: History, Tradition, and Contemporaneity at Chale Wote in Ga Mashie, Accra"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Colleen Foran<\/span><\/h4>\n
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<\/span> Figure 1. Interior view, Ussher Fort. Accra, Ghana. Photograph by the author, 2022.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThat area looks ancient,\u201d a cabdriver responded to my stated destination in Ga Mashie. While the neighborhood is not actually ancient, I understood the sentiment. Ga Mashie constitutes \u201cOld Accra\u201d and contains the Ghanaian capital\u2019s oldest standing buildings.1<\/sup> Constructed by European companies as defensive forts for trade goods, these structures date from the seventeenth century.2<\/sup> The outposts later became hubs of the transatlantic slave trade (fig. 1).3<\/sup> Prior to European incursion, the area was a village populated by fishermen from the Ga ethnic group. Many of the neighborhood\u2019s current residents trace their lineage and livelihoods back to these inhabitants, even as the profession\u2019s viability has declined due to climate change and industrial overfishing (fig. 2). Shipping and retail outposts that prospered during the colonial period have largely moved to the outer reaches of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area.4<\/sup>\u00a0This economic decline has been paralleled by infrastructure decay.<\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/span> Figure 2. View of the new Chinese-funded Fishing Harbor Complex in the Jamestown Harbor in process. The area\u2019s traditional wooden fishing boats can be seen in the distance. Accra, Ghana. Photograph by the author, 2022.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ga Mashie remains a vibrant and culturally rich space. The area echoes with the cheers and jeers of its famed boxing gyms, thumping base from funerals, and dice hitting plastic Ludo boards. Every year, residents perform vital processions like the Yams Festival for Twins and H\u0254m\u0254w\u0254 Festival as markers of ethnic identity and social definition.5<\/sup> H\u0254m\u0254w\u0254 celebrates the end of a historical famine and is the most important event on the Ga community\u2019s calendar.6<\/sup>\u00a0The Chale Wote Street Art Festival has become another annual marker for Ga Mashie. Held every August since 2011, the week-long event draws crowds from around Ghana and, increasingly, the world. The festival transfigures the space of Ga Mashie. Vendors and visitors throng John Evans Atta Mills High Street, closed to traffic for Saturday and Sunday (fig. 3).7<\/sup>\u00a0Artwork is installed in the historic forts (fig. 4) side-by-side with live performances activating the space (figs. 5, 6).8<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

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